Pant-type absorbent articles include a pant-shaped chassis structure and an absorbent core component integrated with the chassis. A major objective when designing pant articles is to make them resemble ordinary underwear as closely as possible. Hence, absorbent articles such as pant diapers, sanitary pants and incontinence pants are designed to fit comfortably and snugly about the wearer. It is desirable that the articles are capable of being pulled up and down over the hips of the wearer in the manner of a pair of underpants to allow the wearer or caregiver to easily remove a soiled article and to replace it with a new clean article. For these reasons, the article chassis is usually made of a material that is elastically stretchable, at least in the areas intended to he applied over the wearer's hips. Furthermore, it is desirable that the chassis surrounding the absorbent parts of the pant article is permeable to air and vapour, i.e. that it is breathable. A breathable article prevents moisture from remaining on the skin of the wearer and is more comfortable and less warm to wear than a non-breathable article. It is also beneficial if the article is soft, smooth and textile-like, so that it does not chafe the skin of the wearer and so that it resembles ordinary underwear as closely as possible.
Moreover, it is desirable that the absorbent pant article can be pulled up over the hips of a wearer without rupturing. A common problem is that the wearer or the caregiver tears the pant by running the fingers through the material when trying to get a good grip for pulling up or removing the pant.
A previously used elastic material for pant articles is a laminate comprising an elastic film sandwiched between two layers of non-elastic nonwoven. In order to render the laminate elastically stretchable, it is subjected to an activation treatment. A three-layer, activated laminate is disclosed in International Patent Application No. WO 03/047488. The activated laminate is produced by incrementally stretching an elastic film layer between two non-elastic cloth-like layers. Incremental stretching is carried out by passing the laminate between intermeshing gear rollers. Activation of elastic laminates by incremental stretching is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,143,679, 5,156,793 5,167,897, 5,422,172, 5,592,690, 5,634,216 and 5,861,074. The non-elastic cloth-like layers are fully or partially broken or torn during the activation process so that the elasticity of the laminate after activation is governed mainly by the elasticity of the elastic film layer. In the three-layer laminate in WO 03/047488, the non-elastic layers are completely broken so that the elasticity of the activated laminate is substantially the same as the elasticity of the elastic film layer.
The disclosed laminates have excellent comfort properties and are soft, breathable and elastic. However, a major disadvantage with the known laminates is that the activation process at least partially breaks and destroys the cloth-like layers resulting in a material having decreased tensile strength and puncture resistance in a direction perpendicular to the direction of elasticity of the material. When used as a chassis component in a disposable pant article, the material is easily torn when exposed to the forces arising when putting on or pulling off the pant article. This tearing problem is particularly pronounced for female wearers or caregivers who often have long fingernails that may penetrate and tear the pant material.
Another problem with the previously known three-layer laminates is that they have a pre-determined extensibility and elasticity. However, it is often desirable to have different elasticity in different parts of a pant-type article. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to supplement the elastic panels created from the three-layer laminate with additional elastic elements or to make different parts of the diaper chassis from different laminates. However, all such extra components are costly and complicate the manufacturing process since they require additional process steps, thus incurring additional processing costs. Moreover, the resulting absorbent articles have a great number of seams and joins, making them appear less like ordinary underwear. It is also desirable to keep the number of seams and joins to a minimum for manufacturing reasons and because all irregularities in the surface of an absorbent article may cause discomfort to a wearer such as chafing of the wearer's skin.
Hence, there exists a need for an improved pant-type absorbent article having a chassis including one or more elastically stretchable textile-like components. Moreover, there exists a need for a simple and efficient process for producing such an absorbent article.